Museum Announces Retirement of Eminent Curator Darrel Sewell and Appointment of Kathleen Adair Foster as Robert L. Mcneil, Jr. Curator of American Art

Philadelphia, PA (July 1, 2002) --Anne d'Harnoncourt, Director and CEO of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, today announced that Darrel Sewell, the Museum’s eminent
Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Curator of American Art, will retire on October 1, 2002, after a
tenure of almost 30 years. Kathleen Adair Foster, currently the Curator of Western Art
after 1800 at Indiana University Art Museum, will succeed him.

"Darrel Sewell has overseen a remarkable era of growth in the presence of American art
at the Museum," Ms. d’Harnoncourt said. "He arrived in 1973, the year when the
Department of American Art was founded, to become its first curator. His contributions
to the entire field have ranged from Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art, the
astonishing, encyclopedic exhibition that he organized in 1976 in celebration of the
Bicentennial and the reinstallation of the American Wing in 1977, to the remarkable
Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibition in 1991. Most recently he has masterminded the
formidable retrospective Thomas Eakins: American Realist that opened at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art last fall, traveled to the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and is
currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He has made many
stellar acquisitions, including major works by Washington Allston, William Rush and
John Singleton Copley, the Cadwalader Collection of paintings by Charles Willson Peale,
a rare complete interior by Wharton Esherick from the music room of the Curtis Bok
House and a fine group of 20th century American crafts.

"The Museum has found in Kathleen Foster the ideal candidate to succeed Darrel. She is
a superb curator, scholar, teacher and author, also deeply grounded in Philadelphia, and
wonderfully suited to carry forward the goals of the department in the years ahead. Kathy
was an outstanding contributor to the Eakins project, and we are absolutely thrilled to
welcome her as the next Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Curator of American Art."

Dr. Foster, who will begin her position at the Museum in October 2002, stated: "I am
deeply honored to accept the McNeil Curatorship at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and
the opportunity it offers to work with the Museum’s vast and rich collections and with
colleagues both inside the Museum and beyond its walls. In many ways it is a
homecoming for me, because of my earlier work preparing the catalogue for the
Museum’s great Bicentennial show – one of Darrel Sewell’s enduring contributions to the
Museum’s history -- and my earlier involvement with the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts. The Philadelphia Museum of Art holds one of the finest collections of
American art in this country, and it is an honor to join the staff of such a great museum.
The coming years promise to be even more eventful than ever for American art, and I am
delighted that Darrel will have an ongoing affiliation with the Museum, assisting in the
many projects that are to come."

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in the History of Art from Wellesley
College in 1970, Dr. Foster served as a curatorial assistant and teaching assistant at the
Yale University Art Gallery from 1970-73. She pursued graduate studies in American Art
at Yale, where in 1982 she received her Ph.D. Between 1979 and 1989, she held a
number of curatorial positions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she
was co-organizer of major exhibitions. In addition to contributing two essays to the
catalogue for the Eakins retrospective, her publications include the books Thomas Eakins
Rediscovered (Yale University Press, 1997), Captain Watson’s Travels in America: The
Sketchbooks and Diary of Joshua Rowley Watson, 1772-1818 (University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1997), Writing About Eakins, co-authored by Cheryl Leibold,
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), and Daniel Garber (Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, 1980). Dr. Foster is a member of the adjunct faculty of Indiana University,
and has lectured at a number of academic institutions, including the University of
Pennsylvania, Temple University and Yale University.

"I can’t imagine a more rewarding place to be a curator than the Philadelphia Museum of
Art," said Darrel Sewell. "Having been so fortunate as to explore in depth one of the
great American collections and to work with my extraordinarily talented colleagues in
this Museum has been a matchless experience. I am absolutely delighted that Kathleen
Foster, who has been a good friend of our Department of American Art for many years,
will be my successor."

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